TRENDING: Fixing B2B Payment’s $18.5 Trillion Problem

From community banks to central banks, the need for faster payments is gripping financial institutions (FIs) of all shapes and sizes. FIs worldwide are making bold pushes to increase their payment speed, from Australia’s new real-time payments scheme to Saudi Arabia’s turn to blockchain.

Faster payments initiatives are gaining steam around the globe. Australia, for one, recently launched its long-awaited New Payments Platform (NPP). Three of its Big Four banks are already implementing the real-time payments scheme, with the final holdout declaring plans to continue testing first.

Over in the U.S., Same-Day ACH (SDA) is phasing into its final stage and, as recent PYMNTS research shows, it comes as 59 percent of corporations report plans to increase use of SDA credits in 2018.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s central bank signed a deal to explore whether Ripple can deliver the jolt of payments speed it needs. It will pilot a program to help participating domestic banks facilitate instant cross-border payments with Ripple, a move that signifies the Middle East may be embracing blockchain tech despite skepticism surrounding the Ripple cryptocurrency.

Faster transfers rely on faster compliance

Making money move faster across borders takes not only the right infrastructure, but also the fulfillment of regulatory requirements.

In this month’s feature story, Brion Nazzaro, U.S. and group compliance director at WorldRemit, discusses the remittance platform’s online-only strategy — and how it’s bringing digital tools to make know your customer (KYC), customer identification program (CIP) and other regulatory and identity verification processes more robust than even in-person checks could be.

“We can conduct our CIP, our KYC — all of our compliance checks — through electronic means…through many methods that can be 24/7,” Nazzaro said.

Find the full story, along with the latest News and Trends from around the Faster Payments world, inside the Tracker.